Chue guided Maomao over to the suspicious person in question.
“Like. I. Said. This is a misunderstanding.”
Maomao heard a high-pitched voice that was really shrill to be a woman’s. She understood once she saw them in person.
“It’s a brat.”
The child looked to be around ten years old with slender eyes and yellow skin; features were strongly more like those of Kaou Province than the residents of the Western Capital. Though their facial features looked boyish, their long hair were tied back, so they were probably a girl. Male children of the Western Capital commonly gather their hair under a tight scarf or in a long braid.
Since the child had been wearing a mask and had long hair over their shoulders, they must have mistaken the child to be a woman.
“I ain’t a brat.”
The child pouted. Their behaviour was evidence of a brat.
Alongside the suspicious child, there was Taomei, Basen, and a guard Maomao often saw but never caught the name of in the room.
“Maomao-san.” Taomei looked at her, different coloured eyes squinted into a smile.
“Why is Taomei-sama here?” Maomao asked.
“My second son, thinking that the girl was actually a boy, was going to do the interrogation, but he noticed that she’s a girl. What do you think happened?”
“Ahhh.” Maomao understood.
Basen can’t deal with women. Speaking of how bad he was, he was such a late bloomer that there were worries that he wouldn’t leave behind any future descendants.
“Mother…” Basen looked awkward.
He was still child-like, but this can’t go on at his age.
(He’s fine with Chue-san and me though.)
Chue was like a rare beast so it can’t be helped, but could it be that Maomao was grouped into the same category?
“Is the interrogation not going smoothly? Shall Chue-san take over?” Chue came over, smiling with her eyes.
“Chue-san, no need for you.” Taomei stopped her.
“Is that so? I’m good at dealing with children though.” Chue hung a flag from her sleeves.
“My apologies, what is the current situation?” Maomao stepped between the in-laws. Everyone in the Ma clan had idiosyncratic personalities, so she would be left behind unless she insisted.
“My apologies. The current situation is with this child here. Her name is Kulumu(庫魯木),” Taomei said.
“Ku, rumu?” Maomao asked.
“You write it like so.” Taomei wrote on the table for her to see.
“Thank you very much.”
The feel of the name was far from the general sound you’d hear from the Capital area. Speaking of which, it sounded more like a Sha’ou name.
“I’ll lay it straight with you too. As you can see, I am a sweet beautiful girl you can find anywhere. I was just loitering around, trying to catch the bird I raised a long time ago!” Kulumu said.
““Beautiful girl…””
Everyone’s eyes gathered onto Kulumu. It seems this girl had a high evaluation of herself. However, they were getting off track by finding fault with that.
“As you can see, she had no ulterior motive other than catching the bird. Obviously there is no malice. So, she’s telling us to obediently return the bird and release her,” Taomei explained.
“She’s quite impudent, huh.” Chue spoke for Maomao.
“You hear me! I was the one who originally raised this bird. Can’t you see? It’s so close with me!” Kulumu exclaimed.
“It doesn’t seem like it though.”
The bird turned away from Kulumu. Upon close up, it really had an odd mask-wearing face.
“Come on, here!” Kulumu put on the mask and the black garb. The bird, the monkey-faced owl, finally approached Kulumu. “Hehe. I hatched it from an egg. I always looked after it in this outfit.”
“So it means that it would react to anyone who wears this outfit. So it doesn’t have to be you,” Maomao said.
“!?” Kulumu’s jaws dropped.
“No, it’s true. Believe me! Believe in the innocent child!” The girl was teary faced. “Come on, I know what is its favourite food.”
“This bird is adorable. Here, some chicken.” Taomei presented chicken meat to the owl. The owl hopped over and pecked at the meat.
“!?”
“It seems as though even if you don’t wear the black outfit, it’ll accept food.”
Kulumu sniffed like she was crying underneath her mask.
Moreover, speaking of Basen, his mother had taken over so he was just standing around saying nothing. He slightly resembled Gaoshen who had reached the state of nirvana.
“I, I was on the one, who, raised it….” Kulumu sobbed.
“If you were the one who raised it, show me proof,” Maomao said.
“Even if you ask me for proof…”
“Maomao-san is merciless to children too, huh.” Chue, as she was speaking like it was somebody else’s business, presented extra chicken meat to Taomei. It seems she was mindful of her mother-in-law. She seemed to have more freedom compared to her father-in-law and brother-in-law, though.
“Even if you say I’m merciless, children can light fires too. If someone acted suspiciously in the villa of a person of authority of the Western Capital, it would be normal to punish them, even children,” Maomao said.
“I suppose so,” Chue said.
“Ah, Chue-san. Chicken meat is dangerous when raw so please cook it first.”
“Alrighty, excuse me.”
Chue was going to put chicken to her mouth. No matter how much of a glutton, Maomao won’t recommend raw pork or chicken.
“I, I really did, r-raise it… I-I hatched it from… an… egg.”
“Is that so? Then, how did you get your hands on an egg? And how did you incubate it? Please explain to me how the bird you raised escaped.”
Sniffling, Kulumu strung her words together. “I-I was, given, the egg. A, A hunter my d-dad is friends with, said, he didn’t want it. Dad, also said he won’t buy it.”
“A hunter?”
“When he hunts with falcons and stuff, he would also find nests and get eggs. Dad, buys those eggs. H-he sells the birds to the rich after raising them.”
So the unsold egg was this bird.
“Then how did you incubate it?”
“…D-dad keeps the room warm by burning fuel. When it gets too hot, he would ventilate the room. And five times a day, he would turn the egg. He won’t let me use it, so I put it under my armpits. I believe parent birds keep it warm the whole time; it hatched in around five days.”
Maomao knew that Kulumu was telling the truth. Maomao only knew little about hatching eggs, but she thought it wasn’t wrong.
“Hey, so how is it?” Basen, who became Gaoshun’s wannabe, asked Maomao.
“I don’t think there’s anything strange. I don’t think she lied,” she replied.
However, there was one thing that bothered her.
“Did you raise this owl to sell it?”
“N-no way!”
“Thought so.” Maomao picked up the black garb. “So you raised it with the intention of releasing it back into the wild.”
“…yeah. So that it could hunt, I taught it how to catch insects.”
“But, it feels like it got sold?”
“…Yeah. Stupid dad did it.” Kulumu clenched her fists. “He sold it when I wasn’t around because the owl has an interesting face and different colouring. Without even consulting me, he just did it. It doesn’t have a mate, so I was thinking of returning it to the forest, and yet. I raised it while wearing this sweltering outfit and a mask just so I can return it!”
Kulumu’s feelings of indignation weren’t unusual. The belongings of women and children were basically under the whims of the family head. It was a typical view of Rii.
(They freeze up when it comes to places where women are powerful though)
It wasn’t unusual to raise daughters as a means for political marriages or for dowry.
“Understood. Then, may I continue with the rest of the story? It’s just conjecture, so if I get anything wrong, please correct me,” Maomao said.
“O-okay.” Kulumu nodded, sniffling.
“Your father’s occupation is not a falconer, but a seller of falcons to the wealthy? For falconry, and as pets.”
Kulumu nodded.
“The owl was sold to this residence. To the daughter of Gyoku’ou-sama, right?”
“…no. She’s actually his adopted daughter. King Ou doesn’t have a daughter at a marriageable age.” As if Kulumu’s queasiness had ceased, her voice grew in clarity.
“King Ou?” Maomao repeated the unfamiliar words. Adopted daughters weren’t strange and she had predicted it so she wasn’t particularly concerned about it.
“The main character of a play has that name. Like cutting the gordian knot, he’d solve complicated problems swiftly and beats down enemies. It’s a story that is based on a young nobleman from a long time ago. Gyoku’ou and King Ou, someone said it as a joke and the name stuck ever since.”
Kulumu looks young, but she thinks quite well, Maomao thought. Her vocabulary was extensive for a child her age.
“Gyoku’ou-sama is popular in the Western Capital, huh.”
“I guess. He’s the eldest son of Gyoku’en-sama who rallied up the capital. He’s also friendly and listens to the voice of the commoners.”
“…is that so.” Maomao didn’t know much about the man called Gyoku’ou, but she had to ask something different now. “The owl got sold to Gyoku’ou-sama’s daughter but the bird escaped and took up a nest in the residence, right?”
“What about it?”
“Where did you hear about the owl escaping?”
“…mn, well. They personally came to apologise to me.”
Maomao exchanged glances with Chue, who was next to her. Taomei and Basen also had a mystified look.
“As you can see, I’m an acquaintance of the Gyoku family, you know. They even taught me words.”
“Hehh, even though you look shabby.”
“Who’s shabby. I’m a beautiful girl!”
Kulumu reacted to Chue’s muttering. Her eyes filled with tears.
“What do you mean? Honestly, I’ve never seen the clothes you wear coming in and out of the residence though.”
Although Taomei changed the way it was said, she was saying the same thing Chue did.
“I was close to Gyoku’ou’s mum, Gyoku’en’s wife. She’s a relative of my dad and she helped out with selling birds to the wealthy too. I met the daughter several times when I delivered the goods and she got troubled when I asked her to return the bird. She got the bird from my dad, so she couldn’t just return it.”
“So you mean, she let it escape on purpose,” Maomao confirmed.
“I don’t know about that. I just got a sorry cause it escaped. In other words, I realised they were telling me to catch it for them. I’m innocent, right?”
“No, you recklessly scared the residents of the residence so you’re not.”
“Uuuu…” Kulumu whined like a beast.
“So you’ve got the gist of the situation, Maomao-san,” Chue said.
“I guess.”
“Yes. Does Maomao-san have anything else you want to ask?”
It was as Chue said. Maomao’s main question wasn’t the reason Kulumu loitered around the estate. Maomao had a good idea about that already.
“Then, can you answer a couple of my questions for the inconvenience you caused?” Maomao asked.
“Yeah, go ahead,” Taomei answered in Kulumu’s stead.
Maomao also asked her questions while looking at Taomei. “Your family raises birds, but do you use them as a means of communication?”
“My family doesn’t. A long, long time ago, during the time of my great grandfather, his relatives had apparently, but I dunno about now.”
Hm, Maomao crossed her arms. “Then, did you do falconry in the past?”
“We did. Dad just got into selling to the wealthy because it made money. We’d catch rabbits and occasionally foxes. Even when they told me this bird’s egg wasn’t wanted, it’s because if it wasn’t a falcon or an eagle, it wouldn’t be able to hunt for large prey. It’s more useful for hunting than as a pet.”
Certainly, this owl could only catch mice and small rabbits.
“Then, can the birds you raise catch only a specific living creature?”
Kulumu furrowed her brows. “…I’ve never done it, but I can’t say it’s impossible. If you keep feeding it a specific feed from a chick, it would get an unbalanced diet. Otherwise, you’d change the feed depending on the prey it hunts. When a falcon brings back the prey it caught, you’d exchange it for feed. The bird might pick the prey once it learns something from trading for its favourite feed.”
Kulumu is truly smart, Maomao thought. If you exclude her high-pitched voice, she has a more mature manner of speaking compared to Chou’u who was the same age as her.
“Then, it might be possible to make a bird that only goes for locusts, huh.”
“Locusts?” Basen snapped at it.
“Locusts, huhh. If it’s that, it’ll be a bird that’s not too big like this guy. Also, it would have to like meat, so it might be more realistic to trade the prey for meat.”
Maomao breathed in and out. “Are you from the Wind-reader tribe?”
Kulumu blinked. “How do you know that name?”
Maomao clenched her fist.
